The dreaded written

I haven’t taken a test in 12 years.

As a matter of fact, the last test I recall taking was my private pilot written exam. I didn’t do particularly well, but I passed the first time.

Now, the instrument written is looming. I’ve been studying some over the past couple of weeks and have a decent grasp of what I need to know, except for one thing: Figuring out FAA test questions.

Consider these two maddeningly similar questions:

What is the primary bank instrument while transitioning from straight and level flight to a standard rate turn to the left?

1. Heading indicator.
2. Turn coordinator (miniature aircraft).
3. Attitude indicator.

During standard-rate turns, which instrument is considered to be "primary" for bank?

1. Attitude indicator.
2. Turn and slip indicator or turn coordinator.
3. Heading indicator.

In the first case, the proper answer is 3, the attitude indicator. In the second, it’s 2, the turn coordinator.

Why? Because in the first case you’re “transitioning” and in the second you’re established in the turn. It took me a while to figure out that if a question involves the moment of transition from one attitude to another, well, the correct answer is probably going to involve the attitude indicator.

The trick is trying to figure out if the question is based on a transition or on something else. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not.

And, for the record, if you were in straight and level flight and planning to stay that way, well, the heading indicator would be “primary” for bank. I think.

My all time favorite has got to be the following, however:

Thrust is managed to maintain IAS, and glide slope is being flown. What characteristics should be observed when a headwind shears to be a constant tailwind?
A) PITCH ATTITUDE: Increases; REQUIRED THRUST: Increased, then reduced; VERTICAL SPEED: Increases; IAS: Increases, then decreases to approach speed.
B) PITCH ATTITUDE: Decreases; REQUIRED THRUST: Increased, then reduced; VERTICAL SPEED: Increases; IAS: Decreases, then increases to approach speed.
C) PITCH ATTITUDE: Increases; REQUIRED THRUST: Reduced, then increased; VERTICAL SPEED: Decreases; IAS: Decreases, then increases to approach speed.

Every time that question comes up on a practice exam my eyes glaze over and I curse softly.

Ok, I lied. I curse loudly.

Running a close second are the multitude of questions involving the behavior of an RMI. None of the airplanes I currently fly has an RMI. I’ve never actually flown with one.

I get, sort of, how they operate and think they’re pretty cool. You can bet if I flew with one regularly I’d remember if the needles should point to 180 or 360 during a VOT test. Since I don’t, well, I don’t.

I’m almost certain it’s 180 degrees, but that’s not really the point. An RMI is about as relevant to me right now as Bill Gates’ checking account balance.

Another lovely question that cropped up involved the coded identification of an intermittent test signal from an MLS. Or something to that effect.

Shoot, I didn’t even know you could ID an MLS.

And since the chances of me ever seeing an MLS, much less an MLS in intermittent test mode or whatever it was, are about as good as my having Bill’s checking account balance I really haven’t given them much study.

Come to think of it, the chances of my ever seeing an MLS are probably worse. Bill could always go bankrupt, but I’m fairly confident that I’ll never fly an MLS approach.

It’s not that I’m not curious about these things. I am. It’s just that I have enough trouble trying to remember how the stuff I use right now works.

The manual for the Garmin 430 I use is something like 300 pages long. There are functions and capabilities deep down in the bowels of that unit that I may never find, yet technically I’m supposed to know everything about how it operates.

On several of our airplanes, the number-two nav has an auto-radial centering mode. But on one of the airplanes, the knob is sort of fussy and you have to play with it a bit to find the sweet spot where it’s not constantly trying to center so you can actually tune the thing.

The knobs themselves are all so worn I can’t read if I need to pull or push the thing to get it to center with a from indication. (Pull comes to mind, but in practice I’d pick one, see if it did what I wanted and if not, pick the other.)

How I wish the FAA could test the stuff you use every day. Sure, the oral and practical tests are there to check just those sorts of things, but why on earth waste brain cells on esoteric functions of a landing system almost nobody uses?

I’ve been taking practice tests on the Sporty’s web site. They must have made some changes recently because the application seems much more reliable. I can get through an entire test without having the application lose my session information and wasting an hour of my life.

There are still two basic areas where I still need to really study: The more obscure weather questions (who cares what type of fog it is, it’s still fog and advection fog, upslope fog, steam fog or radiation fog you’re probably not landing in any of it) and some of the finer points of RMIs and HSIs, which I don't use.

But by far, weather is my biggest challenge right now.

My routine has been to study the Jeppesen book and focus on the areas on which I know I need to work, then take a practice test and look for trends in the questions I’ve missed, which lets me know what to study next time.

I’ve gotten my score on practice tests up around 90, which is good but not great. I’d like to see a 95 or better, but shucks, I’ll settle for a passing score in a pinch.

So, it’s back to hitting the books yet again.

Hold on

No work in the sim over Thanksgiving week, but back up in a 172 to work on some holds and messing with the OBS mode on the Garmin 430.

I hadn’t flown this 172 in 10 months and it was a welcome surprise. Our club got together a while back and decided to all pitch in and install a Garmin 430, new audio panel and new transponder in two of our airplanes. I think it cost about $600 each, which is a real bargain when you consider the upgrades made to the airplanes.

One of our 182RGs already had a 430 while the other was equipped with some ancient nav/coms, an equally ancient transponder, a perfectly functional ADF, an audio panel that probably wasn’t state of the art when the airplane rolled off the factory floor in 1978 and an intercom that kinda sorta worked. It did have a pretty sweet DME, however.

So, out went most of the old gear and in went a brand-spanking new Garmin 430, a GMA 340 audio panel, GI 106A nav head and a GTX 327 transponder. It’s a pretty sweet avionics suite now and made the plane much more attractive to fly. Shame that particular RG has been down for five months while a steering problem is repaired.

We added similar hardware to one of our two 172s, with the exception of the transponder. A new transponder was installed about a year or so ago after the 1977-vintage model finally crapped out somewhere between Oxford, Mississippi and Minneapolis as I was flying home from a trip.

It was good decision by the club membership to invest in our airplanes and we now have Garmin 430s in four of our five airplanes (the Cirrus, both 182RGs and one of our two 172s.)

Anyhow, long story short, I hadn’t flown this particular 172 since the avionics install and it’s turned into a sweetheart of an airplane and an outstanding IFR trainer. The paint and interior are about four years old, so it’s a pretty airplane as well.

I also like it because it’s got 50 gallons of useable fuel on board, which means it’s good for five hours and then some before everything goes quiet. I can’t sit still for that long, but it’s nice to know it’s there if you need it.

Which brings us, finally, to the flying bit.

I’d never used the OBS mode on the Garmin before so Kevin and I went up and worked with it a bit.

OBS mode is really cool. It allows you to fly to or from a specific waypoint on a bearing of your choosing, in effect working like a VOR. Just dial in the waypoint, select OBS mode and dial up whatever bearing suits your fancy on the nav head. Then it’s just a matter of keeping the CDI centered and you’re golden.

We flew the VOR-A into Maple Lake this way, first tracking outbound from the Gopher VOR on the 298 radial and then intercepting the 059 radial from the Darwin VOR and flying it inbound.

(Pop quiz, what should my OBS be set to if I’m flying the 059 degree radial from Darwin inbound? If you guessed 239, the reciprocal, you win a gold star.)

It’s normally a somewhat tricky approach because Darwin can be a little weak and you’re 22 miles away from it at the missed approach point. That means if you’re flying it with a conventional VOR you really need to dial in the OBS in carefully and keep the needle exactly centered. At that distance away from the station, a one-dot deflection means you’ll miss the airport by about a mile.

Maple Lake can be difficult to spot on a good day, in low-visibility it’s a real bear. It’s right off the end of a lake though so that helps orient you a bit, but still.....

Flying the approach using OBS mode on the GPS was a piece of cake. I punched in direct to Darwin, selected OBS mode and dialed in the 239 degree inbound course. From then on it was stone simple. (The approach is in the GPS database, so we could have flown it that way and would have had we been IFR, but the training exercise was about working with OBS mode so that's what we did. )

The really slick part is the GPS also gives you distance, which made identifying the final approach fix at Yazma (27.1 DME from Darwin) a snap. That was good because the St. Cloud VOR was out of service, meaning we couldn’t use it to identify Yazma via a cross-radial.

It took a couple of trips around the hold after the missed approach to really get it nailed down. There was a stronger than expected wind out of the south and I wound up getting blown north of course. I took a moderate cut the first time around the hold, which didn’t really work out, so I took a larger cut the second time.

That still wasn’t enough, so I wound up flying almost directly south to get back onto and stay on the 239 inbound course for my third trip around. That time I pretty much nailed it and we headed back to Crystal for an uneventful GPS-A approach.

The other nifty bit with OBS mode on the Garmin was that you can instantly see how far left or right of course you happen to be. One dot deflection equals one mile, regardless of your distance from the waypoint. That wound up being a bit of a comfort as I kept getting blown around in the hold and made it a little easier to work out wind corrections.

All in all, it was a good day.

Next up, weather permitting, the long cross country. I'm getting reasonably close to taking my checkride. I can’t wait!

Intensity

I still find training sessions – both in the sim and in the airplane – difficult mentally, mainly because they lack the progression and continuity of a normal flight.

It’s one thing to depart, level off in cruise tracking an airway or the GPS, descend, fly an approach and land. I know which step comes next and can think, and then plan, well ahead, consider alternatives and think some more about what I’ll do, even down to where I’ll park.

That normal progression usually goes out the window in training. Instead, it’s a departure followed almost immediately by an approach to minimums, followed by a miss, maybe some maneuvering, another approach to minimums, another miss, another approach and then a landing.

There’s precious little time – in either the sim or the airplane – to get established, take a deep breath and get a feel for the flow of things.

Throw in the unexpected, which perversely seems to be happening more and more as I gain experience, and I’ve got a mental workout on my hands. That’s the real crux of instrument flying, the mental aspect.

They say instrument flying is 10% physically flying the airplane and 90% mental. If that’s true, instrument training feels more like it’s 90% physical and 90% mental, which means my brain has to overclock just to keep up.

We’d talked about it when I started training so I knew to expect it.

It’s great training and I absolutely love the challenge of it.

But brother, I also can’t wait to start flying some nice leisurely IFR cross-countries where I have more than a minute to think about and get set up for an approach.

What a luxury that will be. I wonder if I’ll get bored?

Differences

After yesterday’s flight in IMC I started thinking about the differences between the sim and the real airplane.

The most obvious of course is that the consequences of a mistake in the airplane are much higher than they are in the sim.

But ignoring that for a minute, some other observations:

+ There’s simply a lot more going on in the airplane than in the sim. You’ve got constant radio traffic to manage, for example, which is difficult to duplicate on the ground. Communication between myself and my instructor is more difficult as well, given the level of noise, the radio chatter and the occasional vagueness of the intercom. The airplane really is a horrible classroom, but an intense learning environment.

+ The physical cues and sensations that are missing from the sim seem exaggerated in the airplane after so much time sitting securely on the ground. Small bumps, subtle changes in the sound of the airstream, yawing motions in turbulence all add to the mental distractions and illusions. I found myself having to concentrate even harder on the instruments while mentally evaluating and sometimes setting aside the constant stream of physical cues.

+ Everything seemed to happen just a little bit faster in the airplane. The instruments jumped around a bit faster, headings got away from me ever that much quicker, altitude deviations happened quicker than I was used to. Again, it’s not like I was all over the sky but it wasn’t the precision I was used to flying with.

Great athletes say everybody in the game seems to slow down but they keep moving at regular speed and I assume it’s the same for pilots. I’m not there yet. I’ve had glimpses of it, but they’ve been fleeting.

+ Overall, there’s just much more information to process in the airplane. That’s what makes the sim such a great teaching tool, allowing you to focus on individual components – failures, for example – instead of constantly having to deal with the whole.

One thing I noticed yesterday was that flying the approach was automatic, almost reflexive. I’ve flown the VOR-A into Crystal enough times that I have it memorized, but all the practice in the Frasca has really paid off. Intercepting the final approach course and tracking the proper radial happened almost at a subconscious level.

The CDI never really varied and was dead center until I was almost directly over the Gopher VOR. It briefly swung over to nearly full scale passing the station, but almost immediately came right back on center. I made some small corrections and kept it nailed in place until I looked outside and saw the airport, right were it was supposed to be. Those early S-turns to track the final approach course are, hopefully, gone for good.

In fact, I was concentrating so intently on flying a good approach (ice does wonders for your focus, I suppose) I forgot to lower the gear at the final approach fix. Not good, especially since it’s on my checklist.

I’m certain that with more than 30 seconds to get set up I would have properly briefed the approach and read far enough ahead on my checks that I wouldn’t have missed it. As it was, we requested the approach while very close to Gopher, maybe five or six miles, got an immediate intercept vector that was too shallow and then a late turn to get us to the final approach course all while being kept higher than we would have liked.

That’s no excuse, however, and a mistake I have no intention of repeating.

Overall, yesterday was the toughest day yet but I came through it ok despite a few mistakes. Now that I’ve had a tiny peek at what’s behind the golden door, I’m more eager than ever to get up in the clouds.

Actual, and ice.

After a month in the Frasca it felt good to get back into an airplane. It had been four weeks since I'd last flown and five since I'd flown the 182RG.

It was looking like a good day to get into some clouds, so Kevin and I requested a local IFR clearance and asked for a block of airspace between 3,000 and 5,000 feet northwest of the Gopher VOR.

I'd made certain the pitot heat was actually working during my pre-flight and did a VOR check before departure and carefully noted it on my knee board.

It was wheels up just after 1 p.m. and over to departure frequency.

Minneapolis departure quickly approved our request for a block and gave us what amounted to the northwest quadrant off of the Gopher VOR from 5 to 15 miles out between the 270 and 360 radials.

At 3,000 we were in and out of the bases with virtually no forward visibility and occasional glimpses of the ground.

Finally, I'd had my first taste of flying in actual conditions.

I wasn't as smooth and precise as I would have liked, but I managed a pretty good job maintaining heading and altitude and after a few minutes started to settle down.

We flew some headings for a while, ranging around our block of airspace between 3,000 and 3,500. Then approach had us climb to 4,000 for separation from other traffic. At 4,000 we were in solid IMC but the turbulence was a bit less.

I was concentrating on the instruments when K. announced we were picking up ice. I looked out and sure enough, we were getting build-ups of rime icing on the leading edges of the wings and struts.

After experiencing tailplane stalls in the Frasca just a few days before I quickly looked back to check the tail. The rule of thumb is that you'll accumulate twice as much ice on the tail as on the wings. It was difficult to judge just how much we'd picked up on the tail, but it was certainly icy back there.

We told ATC we were picking up ice and needed lower and were immediately cleared back down to 3,000. All of this took only a few minutes, but it sure felt longer.

Back down at 3,000 the temperature was hovering just above freezing and while the ice had stopped accumulating it wasn't exactly going away either. We knew we had warmer air and great visibility just below so there was no reason to panic, but it certainly was an eye-opener.

I would have happily stayed out all day enjoying my first foray into IMC, but our indicated airspeed was down to around 125 knots (140 to 150 knots is more typical) even with a normal cruise power setting of 23 inches manifold pressure and 2,200 RPM. I knew to expect a decrease in performance due to the drag (and weight) caused by the ice but I was surprised at just how much of a penalty we paid for the relatively small amount of ice we’d picked up.

That was enough for me and we quickly requested the VOR-A back into Crystal. Approach vectored us in close to the Gopher VOR and I told Kevin my plan was to leave the flaps up until the ice had departed the airframe. We were already close to normal approach speed and there was no reason to add drag or risk a tailplane stall.

Approach had kept us at 3,000 until we were two miles from the FAF at Gopher. We started down on a slam-dunk as soon as we were cleared for the approach and almost immediately were back in visual conditions with terrific visibility and the ice melting away.

By the time we turned base the last chunk fell away, I put in some flaps and greased the big RG onto 32R. (Seriously, it was one of my smoothest landings yet in an RG.)

1.1 hours, .8 of it actual instrument time, and I was feeling pretty tired. No doubt, picking up some ice added a bit to the stress level but it was also a terrific learning experience and a reminder to always keep flying the airplane and to get out icing conditions immediately.

I’m also glad my first time in IMC was with an instructor onboard and not solo or with a non-pilot in the right seat. I can’t wait to get back at it, although without the icing.

Emergencies

Another bargain session in the Frasca working through a list of emergencies.

Calling it ‘the flight when everything broke’ would be accurate. In 1.0 hours we practiced a few engine failures, wake turbulence encounters, a blocked static port, a split flap scenario, tailplane stalls and a blocked pitot tube.

The last, the blocked pitot tube, was one that I was really eager to experience. It’s a particularly insidious problem, one that might be caused by forgetting to turn on the pitot tube heat in icing conditions, for example.

The result is that the airspeed indicator begins functioning as an altimeter, which is very difficult to detect. A gross over-simplification is that as you climb, the ASI shows an increase and as you descend it shows a decrease, which is opposite what you'd normally expect.

You can imagine then how easy it would be to notice a higher than normal airspeed indication, pitch up (which puts you in a climb) to reduce speed only to see an increase, so you pitch up some more, which is reflected yet again as an increase on the ASI. At about this time, the stall horn will probably go off, leaving you totally baffled and not long for this world.

Experiencing it in the sim drives home why there is so much emphasis on keeping a scan going, cross-checking and interpreting the instruments and not fixating on a particular instrument

Pilots have literally destroyed their airplanes in flight as they chased a malfunctioning airspeed indicator and flew a series of ever more aggressive climbs and descents that ended with parts being ripped from the airframe.

What really surprised me was how subtle the failure of the airspeed indicator was and how difficult it was to detect. I was expecting something much more dramatic.

As usual, I was flying along fat, dumb and happy when I realized the picture had stopped adding up. Unlike a failed attitude indicator, this one took more time to cross-check and understand what had happened.

As I climbed, I realized my airspeed was all wrong: Higher than normal and rising ever so slightly. I pitched up a hair to get back on my target climb speed but the ASI didn’t respond, so I pitched up a bit more. Sensing something was wrong, I pitched down and watched for the ASI to show an increase, which of course never happened. This continued on as I made subtle tests, cross checking the attitude indicator with the altimeter and VSI to be certain I was climbing or descending.

Eventually it was clear both the pitot opening and drain were blocked and I’d lost the ASI. (If only the opening had been blocked the ASI would have dropped to zero, a confusing situation for sure but one that would be simpler to figure out.)

The blocked static system was almost as difficult to detect. Linda had me fly a holding pattern over the Gopher VOR (which I botched the first time around because I’d lost track of where I was) with instructions to descend for a visual approach to the Anoka County airport after the second trip around the hold.

I concentrated on flying my entry, starting my timing and making small corrections to keep the needle centered on the inbound leg.

About then I started feeling pretty good about myself and thinking I’d become the world’s best instrument pilot because I had managed to perform all of this maneuvering without losing or gaining even a foot of altitude. The altimeter and VSI were looking like they were nailed in place, which of course they were.

Even after more than 7 hours in the Frasca 142 I still have a difficult time flying it smoothly in pitch. It’s not that I’m all over the sky, but the thing is just a little overly sensitive in pitch and therefore difficult to fly perfectly.

So, when the altimeter and VSI stayed put for over a minute I began to suspect that I wasn’t exactly the hotshot I thought I was, but that I had a problem with the airplane.

I left the power alone and gingerly pitched up, then pitched up some more. The airspeed indicator began to drop, indicating I was indeed climbing but the altimeter and VSI stayed put. So I pitched down slightly, watched the airspeed increase but still no movement on the altimeter and VSI.

“What next?” Linda queried.

“Well, I’ll pull the alternative static source knob” as I began hunting around the Frasca cockpit while also trying to remember where it’s located in the 182RG.

“You don’t have one, what now?”

“Well, I’ll grab something and break the glass on the VSI to open up the static system again.”

Not wanting to destroy the Frasca, Linda had me fly the approach using pitch and power settings – no VSI or altimeter – to establish an approximate rate of descent, which worked out just fine. (An issue with the Frasca means you can’t actually descend without the altimeter functioning, something I assume has been addressed in newer sims.)

The other failures were relatively benign to deal with, but experiencing both a pitot and static failure in an environment like the sim was incredibly valuable. It’s something you simply can’t experience in the real airplane until it happens for real, which is not the time to learn how to deal with the problem.

Like I said earlier: The combination of the sim and a good instructor is a flat-out bargain.

Progress

At the end of my latest session in the Frasca Linda talked me through an interesting exercise: An ILS flown at cruising speed to a zero/zero landing.

You’d never attempt such madness in real life in a 172 unless there were absolutely no other options. In the sim, it’s a fantastic exercise in keeping a quick scan going and flying with precision.

The scenario we laid out was that I was basically an idiot, had gotten totally iced up, couldn’t pull the power back because the airplane wanted to stall at anything less than full power and now had but one shot at the ILS.

The key, Linda coached, was to make very quick, very small corrections and keep the needles perfectly centered. (Sounds familiar, eh?)

So, I got set up for the ILS 10R at Flying Cloud and had a go.

The first approach didn’t work out quite as I’d hoped. I kept the localizer nailed but simply couldn’t get down fast enough to capture the glide slope. In desperation at the middle marker I chopped the power and shoved the nose down, making what would have resulted in a small crater had we been in the real airplane. (In my defense, it would have been a small crater right on the centerline.)

We talked it over and both realized that I’d been vectored onto the localizer just outside of the outer marker at 3,000 feet instead of at 2,700 feet, which meant I was already high and never could quite get down to capture the glide-slope.

It also dawned on me that I’d been trying to fly the typical 500 f.p.m. descent profile I was used to with a groundspeed of around 100 knots. At the speed I was flying (about 140 knots) that profile was simply too shallow and I needed to be descending at around 700 f.p.m. if I wanted to stay on the glide slope.

I had her set it up again, this time with me at the proper altitude to intercept the glide slope from below.

This time, the localizer needle never strayed by more than half a needle-width and I did a reasonably good job at keeping the glide slope within about a one-dot deviation, even though at points I had the nose pushed down to between 15 and 20 degrees. As difficult as the sim is to handle in pitch, I considered keeping the glide slope within a dot of center reasonably good flying.

At the middle marker I started pulling off the power and watched the glide slope disappear as I passed the threshold. I slammed down onto the runway, bounced and started to float. I did what I could to keep the localizer centered and started to flare when the altimeter neared the field elevation.

Linda raised the ceiling and visibility and there I was, just a little left of the centerline and hauling butt.

Driving home it dawned on my how much progress I’d made since my first trip into the Frasca. Back then, my first ILS was a series of shallow s-turns back and forth across the localizer as I made a series of overly aggressive corrections. With that technique there was no way I could have completed our zero-zero exercise without a fair bit of luck.

Now, after Linda’s considerable efforts at polishing my flying, there should be no excuse for anything more than a half-needle deviation.

Which means I now have to live up to what I’ve been taught, a fairly scary thought.

The bookshelf

Remembering Gordon Baxter got me thinking about some of the other aviation books I've read.

(If you wind up buying any of them through the links to Amazon I think they'll pay me a commission, which goes right back into flying. I actually set up an Amazon Associates account mainly to see how it worked. This is the first test.)

My favorite still is Ernest K. Gann's ' Fate is the Hunter'. Gann captured the spirit of an age that’s gone forever. Much of what’s gone forever should stay in the past, to be honest, but there’s no doubt that Gann flew during an incredible era.

It amazes me that a single person could have so many noteworthy experiences in a single lifetime.

What’s even more amazing about Gann is that aviation was just one of many careers. He wrote plays, was a low-level spy, fished, sailed, painted and became a hugely successful author to name just a few.

I make it a point to re-read ‘Fate’ every year and even though I know much of it by heart the experience never gets old.

Thanks to Gann there’s a small part of me on every flight that’s flying the Fjord to Bluie West One.

Bob Buck’s ‘North Star Over my Shoulder’ is another stellar tale of a bygone era. Buck started with TWA in DC-2s and retired as a 747 captain. A contemporary of Gann, he had an equal share of adventures and captured them beautifully.

Re-reading ‘The Cannibal Queen’ has become a Christmas tradition. I got a copy of Stephen Coonts’ tale of flying a Stearman to all of the lower 48 as a gift years ago. I keep it at my mother’s house and when I’m back for Christmas I dig it out and read it again.

It’s an adventure that I could actually duplicate and while I can’t afford a Stearman I can’t look at an ad for an old rag and tube taildragger without thinking what a blast it would be to spend a summer flying low and slow around the country.

I stumbled across a copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s ‘North to the Orient’ at a used bookstore in Bayfield Wisconsin last summer and read it in a single sitting. It was that good.

To be honest, I’ve always been ambivalent about her husband but Anne Lindbergh’s recounting of their 1931 trip to survey the Arctic route to Japan and China in a massive open-cockpit floatplane is mesmerizing. She is a lovely storyteller and one of those rare people who are as sensitive as they are courageous. If I had the cash I’d buy a Cessna 208 Caravan amphib and retrace their trip.

'True North' is another tale of the Arctic and was written by a Minnesotan, George Erickson. It’s part flying story, part geology lesson, part history lesson with a bit of sociology thrown in. Erickson seems like a pretty interesting guy and steeped in the culture and history of a part of the earth to which few people would even consider traveling, especially alone.

‘Zero Three Bravo,’ by Mariana Gosnell, and ‘One Zero Charlie,’ by Laurence Gonzales are nice looks at small, simple airplanes and the people who fly them. Gosnell flew her Luscombe around the country in the 1970s and met some real characters. Gonzales documented life, and death, at a small Illinois airport and takes a look at what motivates people to not only fly, but to fly competitive aerobatics.

‘Flying South’ by Barbara Cushman Rowell is worth picking up as much for the lessons in aeronautical decision making as it is for the inside look at what it’s like for to fly throughout contemporary Latin America.

It’s a book that has generated controversy, with some folks labeling her a bad pilot or at least a pilot in over her head and succumbing to pressure from her husband. I’m not so sure that sits well with me.

All pilots make mistakes and all pilots exercise poor judgment occasionally – it’s simply a matter of degree -- but they usually don’t write honestly about the experience. I’d argue that Lindbergh pushing on in the miserable conditions described in ‘North to the Orient’, or Gann guessing that he was in the right Fjord to arrive at Bluie West One were reckless, yet they’re held up as heroes.

How do you make good decisions? Experience. How do you gain experience? Bad decisions, be they your own or not.

I’m glad I read ‘Flying South’ and I’m sorry for the cruel twist that means Rowell isn’t here to speak for herself. My advice would be to read it yourself and make up your own mind.

It's over yonder

Back into the Frasca today for 1.3 hours.

We did some NDB work, departing Anoka and tracking to Cambridge where I shot the NDB 34 approach twice.

Both NDB approaches worked out just fine, although I forgot to identify the Cambridge NDB on the first one. That's a big no-no and will probably earn me a pink if I repeat it on my checkride. There's no excuse, since verifying the nav radios is on my approach checklist.

Linda called me on it, and I was glad she did. The first approach itself was a beauty (she had no wind cranked in, so it’s pretty much stone simple) and the runway was right where it was supposed to be.

On the second, I got vectored in fairly close to the airport and wound up passing the NDB while still on instruments. It was a good experience. Without a GPS or a controller’s call it’s difficult or even impossible to tell how far you are from the station.

I’d done everything I could with what I had in the sim. There’s a transition radial off of the Gopher VOR and I had that set to give me a bit more situational awareness, but it’s a really shallow intercept so not very good for estimating the distance. With 200 feet or so still left to descend the needle on the ADF dropped away, much to my surprise, indicating I’d passed the station.

“What would you do now?”

“Not much I can do, go missed and ask for another approach,” I replied. Life is like that some days I guess.

An NDB approach, especially if you don’t have a GPS and are on your own navigation, is a pretty good spot for a Dive and Drive procedure.

I happen to think NDB approaches are pretty cool. There’s something that’s so old-school about them and once you get the hang of tracking to and from an NDB on a specific bearing they’re really a piece of cake. Throw in some massive winds and they’re probably not quite as fun, but it’s still really just a matter of working with relative angles and keeping the mental math to a minimum.

I say that like I thought that whole ‘relative angles’ thing up, but the truth is before I started training all I knew about using an ADF to navigate was that the needle always pointed toward the station and you could pick up the ball game on the thing. The term ‘NDB approach’ equaled ‘Math’ in my brain, so they were to be avoided if at all possible.

One of the best lessons I had involved my instructor, a bucket representing the NDB and me walking around the ramp, doing various intercepts and tracks. It took about 20 minutes and suddenly everything just sort of clicked. Amazing what a good instructor can do for you, eh?

Gordon Baxter, who wrote his folksy Bax Seat column in Flying magazine for ages, described an NDB approach as ‘It’s over yonder’, which always cracks me up.

Baxter, by the way, wrote a book titled ‘How to Fly’ that was a huge influence on me growing up. I don’t remember how old I was when I read it, maybe 10 or so, but I still remember pieces of it vividly. At the time, I couldn’t believe anybody could be as lucky as Bax and I thought he was ten feet tall. Pretty much still do.

I became a pilot, in part, because Bax’s stories made be believe I could. The column Flying ran right after Bax died is a classic and I can’t help but smile when I read it.

That book is long out of print and I have no idea what happened to my copy. I just bought a used copy through Amazon.com for $1.50 and can’t wait to read it again.

Talk to me Goose

Left on my own, I probably wouldn’t say a word during a flight. I’m perfectly happy looking out the window (or at the instruments) and cruising along in silent terror.

One of my instructors has written about the value of being quiet as an instructor. It prompted me to think about the value of speaking up as a student.

Now that I’m training for the instrument rating I’ve gotten in the habit of talking. A lot.

This started early on. I tend to be pretty deliberate in the cockpit, an over-compensation for my natural tendency to rush things. That means, among other things, my poor instructors are sitting there wondering just when in the heck I’m going to get around to doing what I should have been doing 30 seconds ago.

When I was getting checked out in the 182RGs I would typically leave the flaps at 10 degrees after departure until I was at pattern altitude. Well, one day I forgot and we climbed on out for miles. I couldn’t figure out why the aircraft wasn’t performing as I’d expected but kept my mouth shut and tried to figure it out. My ever-patient instructor, who by now was getting used to my deliberate approach, couldn’t take it any more after we were about 15 miles out and asked me if I had any intention of ever raising the flaps.

It was a wake-up moment for me and I realized that while I’d generally been thinking ahead of the airplane and had a pretty good plan, I wasn’t communicating that plan or anything else that was in my head. That meant my instructor had to take a wait-and-see approach and couldn’t really guide the mental side of my training until after the fact.

So I came clean and explained that by nature I tend to say less rather than more but that I’d start working to really explain what I was doing, what I was going to do and what I was thinking.

The result was I talked much more, my instructor talked much less and I felt I was really learning effectively.

I think of it as constantly posing to myself the question “What are your intentions” and then verbalizing the answer.

I now do several things I hadn’t in the past.

First, I always do my approach briefing out loud. If I’m thinking it, out it comes. So, a typical briefing for the VOR-A into Crystal might go something like: “Ok, this will be a full approach. We’re approaching from the West so I’ll probably lead the turn by a half mile or so cuz it's pretty sharp. I’ll fly outbound on the 346 at 3,000 for two minutes and then begin my procedure turn. Once I’m level on the outbound leg of the turn I’ll twist to the inbound course. Once I’m established inbound I’ll descend to 2,500 and get slowed up, 10 degrees of flaps, two miles from Gopher. MDA is 1,360, I’ll use 1,400 and I’m flying the number one nav. We should have a bit of a tailwind so I’ll want to make sure I’m slowed down in time.”

Once I’m established inbound I keep things simple: “Looking for Gopher, then it’s gear down and locked and I’m looking for 1,400 feet. We’ll circle to land on 32 right, you want me to overfly the field or break it off at the MDA and enter a downwind? Missed approach starts with a climbing left turn. Dude, this is so cool.”

Then it’s just a matter of running my checklists, saying something relevant crossing the final approach fix, my altitude callouts (500 feet, 200, 100, 50, minimums) and handling any radio calls. Outside of the altitude calls, I don’t say much at all from the FAF inbound if I can help it.

On takeoff I might brief an engine failure, just so my instructor knows I’m thinking about the possibility. Usually this is something simple like “If the engine fails below 500 feet I’ll crash into the lake. Can you swim?”

I’ve got two calls on the takeoff roll: “Airspeed alive” and “Ts & Ps green” (meaning engine Temperatures and Pressures.)

Climbing out or en route I’ll call my next heading and altitude, explain when I’ll pick up the weather for our destination airport and occasionally ask ‘clear left’ just to make sure somebody is actually looking outside. I’ll do my best to point out fixes, or at least estimates, so my instructor knows I know where I am, more or less.

Then, if there’s a spare moment, I’ll shut up or say something totally off the wall just to keep things light. (“If I fly the approach inverted, will I get reverse sensing before or after the engine seizes?”)

Hopefully you’re getting the idea. It’s a lot of talking, and that’s not counting reading my checklist items out loud or the radio work.

The upside is I’ve found I really have a better understanding of what I need to be thinking about and I feel more ahead of the airplane. It’s almost as if at any second, if ATC came up and said “Say intentions” I could prattle on for a good five minutes before they finally gave up and said “cleared to do whatever, please just shut up.”

I think it helps my instructors as well because they know what’s coming, or at least what I think is coming. And if I’m missing something, they can usually get me on track by saying something deeply profound like “What else?”

Get off my lap

No flying or Frasca sessions for me today. I might fire up X-Plane this evening and practice a bunch of ILS approaches to minimums and work on making small corrections and patiently waiting for the result.

Patience is a virtue I'm lacking. I'm told I ran before I could walk and that's pretty much set the tone for life since.

There's nothing that drives me crazier than making a 5 degree correction and waiting for the needle (be it from a VOR, a localizer or the GPS) to center again. So I wind up making a 20 degree correction to speed things along a bit with predictable results. Next thing I know, I'm correcting back the other way and the long dance of the needles begins.

So, I've been working on staying patient and letting things settle down after small corrections. It doesn't come naturally to me, but the results are much better.

Speaking of not coming naturally, I hate flying with anything on my lap. Flying VFR I usually jam a chart or two between the glare shield and side window and throw my clipboard on the back seat. That approach hasn't worked out very well learning to fly IFR.

After several embarrassing episodes rummaging around the back seat to find the latest ATIS code or write down a clearance I decided it was time to get over my lapboarditis.

I've been experimenting with different set-ups and I think I've finally found one I can live with. You can spend a small fortune on some of the knee-boards for sale but I just couldn't bring myself to do that, so I bought a simple Saunders aluminum clipboard for $10 at OfficeMax and figured that was good enough.

I modified it ever so slightly, adding some dual-lock to the back side to secure the clip for my ASA timer and taped my personal IFR approach checklist to the front side.

I slip all the approach charts I'll be using for the day under the clip, use the back of my flight-planning form for notes and call it good. When I fly an approach, I pull out the plate and stick it in a nifty, albeit overpriced, little yoke mounted clip where I can see it better. More importantly, it's one less thing on my lap.

I'll probably modify it a bit more by adding a clip that holds my charts and scratch paper at a better angle for writing.

I like keeping things simple, but the timer was a bit of a splurge. It's easy to use with a bit of practice but the main advantage is that it's the same no matter what airplane I'm flying. I usually don't wear a watch, so it's not unusual for me to show up at the airport with my $30 Timex still on my nightstand. Having the timer in my flight bag ensures it'll be at the airport with me.

And I still don't like flying with stuff on my lap, but I'm getting used to it. When I'm on my sim at home I force myself to keep my lapboard on my lap where it belongs and not on the desk.

In fact, I hated using a lapboard so much that for a solid week I made myself keep it on my lap while I was watching television at night, just to get used to it. My wife, thankfully, didn't even raise an eyebrow as I sat there watching Entourage playing with my timer and scribbling imaginary clearances.

I'm getting used to it and I'm far more organized in the cockpit than when I began my training, but I still can't wait to get that thing off of my lap.

Staying stable

If I ever get through this instrument rating, then through the commercial, then through the CFI and then, finally, through the CFII I hereby promise to never forget one simple fact: There’s more than one way to do just about anything.

I managed to log .9 in the Frasca today, working on non-precision approaches. Before we started, Linda and I had an interesting discussion about two methods for getting down to the MDA from your altitude at the FAF and then either going missed or continuing the approach to a landing.

The first is colorfully known as ‘Dive and Dash’ or ‘Dive and Drive’ and, near as I can tell, has been taught since the first instrument approach was scribbled on the back of an envelope by the first airmail pilot to survive the experience.

The second doesn’t have a colorful name, probably because it’s relatively new or maybe because it’s a relatively unromantic procedure to fly. Call it a stabilized approach, a CANPA (Continuous Angle Non-Precision Approach) or a calculated Visual Descent Point approach and you’ll be in the ballpark.

The beauty is they’re both fine – or at least acceptable in the eyes of the F.A.A. – ways of doing the same thing: Getting your butt down out of the clag and to a point in space from which a normal landing can be made.

Very quickly then:

• The ‘Dive and Drive’ approach essentially involves descending from the FAF to the MDA fairly rapidly, leveling off and then continuing onward while looking for the runway environment.
• The calculated VDP approach essentially involves picking a specific rate of descent that will place you at the MDA and at the point from which you would normally continue to descend for a landing. In effect, you fly a set rate of descent, look outside as you approach the MDA and if you see a runway you just keep on keeping on. If you don’t see a runway, or at least part of the airport, you go missed.
  

In my mind, the key to the calculated VDP is to make sure you arrive at the MDA far enough from the runway – and at a slow enough airspeed – to continue in for a normal landing. Arrive at the MDA right at the MAP, which is usually the runway threshold, and no way am I going to get down in time without seriously stretching the definition of the word ‘normal.’ If that happens, I was probably better off flying a Dive and Drive to begin with.

With the Dive and Drive method, that problem is usually solved since you’ll typically wind up down at the MDA a mile or two - maybe even more if you’re really aggressive – from the runway threshold and have plenty of time to get airspeed nailed and start a normal descent.

Today’s sim session was devoted to flying the VOR-A approach into Crystal and calculating an appropriate rate of descent to reach the VDP.

Linda varied the headwind component on each approach, from zero, to about 10 knots headwind and then to a 15 knot tailwind. (Another plug for just how useful the sim is as a training aid. Try that in the airplane.) My job was to divide the ground speed in half and add a zero to approximate a 3-degree glideslope and then fly the resulting rate of descent to the MDA.

It worked like a charm and I broke out each time in perfect position to continue in for landing with only minor corrections.

There are some really interesting arguments about the pros and cons of each approach, especially when flying light propeller-driven aircraft.

Personally, I’m leaning toward the calculated VDP approach as my first choice because it feels smoother to me.

I worry that it’s easy to get distracted by a radio call or some other factor and blow right through the MDA on a Dive and Drive approach and I figure the less time spent down low in poor conditions the better.

That being said, there are also good reasons for getting out of the clouds as quickly as possible. I can imagine scenarios where a Dive and Drive gives you a little more time to find the airport visually, which I think would be a real benefit if you're a little bit off the final approach course, approaching an unfamiliar airport or flying a circling approach.

So, like most things in aviation, it’s good to learn them both I suppose and then pick the right tool for the task at hand.

Voltage -- too much is as bad as too little

Today's AOPA ePilot flight training newsletter dealt with the topic of electrical failures.

We'd discussed the same topic on Tuesday night at my flying club meeting. One of our 182RGs had experienced a series of electrical problems over several flights. In one case, the pilots had to pump the gear down manually. In another, the pilot was 30 minutes into a long IFR cross country trip. He returned and had just enough juice left to get the gear down without resorting to pumping.

As we were discussing what had happened in both cases, one point jumped out at me. The pilots who pumped the gear down manually also lowered the flaps. There was only enough power in the battery to get the flaps down to about 20 degrees, which turned out to be a blessing rather than a curse.

You can't pump the gear up in a 182RG, once it's down it's down. If you're out of electrical power that means you can easily find yourself in the uncomfortable position of having both gear and flaps down with no way of getting either back up.

Or, thinking about it differently, lots of drag and no way to lose it.

I remember being taught not to lower the flaps, certainly not fully, if you had an electrical failure. The thinking being that if you had to go around and couldn't get the flaps up you'd just made a relatively minor problem into a full-blown emergency.

A 172 with 40 degrees of flap might climb, if the weight is down and it's cool outside, but not very quickly if at all. I suspect a 182RG might fare slightly better, but not much. I'll have to remember to try a climb, at a safe altitude, with full flaps next time I'm out in one of the RGs. I've read several accident reports where pilots attempted a go-around with full flaps and didn't make it.

I've experienced two electrical failures in my scant 250 or so hours of flying.

When I was a student pilot working on my night flying the generator on our 172 stopped charging. Luckily, my instructor was on board. We landed on a 1,900 foot grass strip with what is officially called 'non-standard' runway lighting. I think there were about five runway lights that actually worked.

We put in 10 degrees of flaps (they wouldn't go down any further anyway) and my instructor looked at me and said, "We shouldn't have done that. We'll never get them back up if we have to go around."

We landed with no lights at all in the cabin and my instructor shining a rapidly fading flashlight on the airspeed indicator. It was a great confidence booster and one I hope to never repeat.

What's so interesting from a learning perspective is that pilots get used to doing the same thing over and over again and they might not think about the consequences of that action in an abnormal situation. I think this hold true for pilots of all experience levels and it's just another reminder of how important it is to always be thinking ahead.

The second time, I got an over-voltage warning in one of our club 172s. I got out the POH, cycled the master and the light stayed on. I was only about 10 minutes from home so I did a 180 and decided to figure it out safely back on the ground at Crystal.

Then, the ammeter started bouncing between a full discharge and a full charge and I knew I had a real problem.

I turned everything off except one comm radio and the transponder and landed without flaps, a non-event in a 172 (or a 182 for that matter.)

I'd like to say I left the flaps up because I was thinking ahead to a potential go-around. I wasn't. The truth is, I was concentrating on saving electrical power and didn't want to lose the radios. That's not a particularly smart way to fly.

The AOPA article asked the obvious question: Do you remember which light signals mean what? A few of us had the same discussion at our club meeting. One pilot had them placarded on his clipboard. Personally, about all I remember is that green is good, red is bad and flashing green and red means be really careful. I've got to add one of those placards to my clipboard.

I guess the point is, electrical failures happen. Probably half of the 20 club members in attendance that night had experienced an electrical failure of some kind in their flying careers.

I still don't carry a portable comm radio, but now that I'll soon be flying IFR it's looking like a better idea. Of course, as soon as I buy one I'll probably never experience another electrical failure again.

That'll be just fine with me.

Sim Session

About 10 minutes into my first session in the Frasca 142 I was totally sold on the benefits of the simulator for instrument training.

For the first nine minutes I wasn't so sure.

The instruments, particularly the attitude indicator and heading indicator on the HSI, didn't have the smoothness and fidelity I'd been used to in my PC-based sim at home. There was some slight ratcheting of the AI and HI in turns, as I rolled in and out of turns, for example.

I'd been assigned the imaginary AADCO ONE departure out of the Anoka County Airport and cleared to hold northeast of the equally imaginary (in this part of the country) HOLDM intersection with left turns.

The holding instructions threw me as I traced the pattern onto the departure procedure I'd just been handed. I managed to get the pattern northeast of HOLDM, but drew it as if I was going to fly right-hand turns.

Linda coached me through it and I eventually got the pattern straight in my head. I'm not going to try to explain how to figure out the proper holding pattern here. I'll leave that to a CFII.

Anyhow, I took off, flew my assigned heading and intercepted the 050 radial outbound from the Gopher VOR. Pretty as a picture I leveled off at my assigned altitude and then entered the hold.

On my second trip around the holding pattern the picture on the instruments stopped adding up. The turn-coordinator was showing me wings level, the airspeed indicator, altimeter and vertical speed indicator showed me level in pitch but the attitude indicator was showing a descending turn to the left while the heading indicator wasn't doing much of anything at all.

"You've failed the vacuum pump on me" I called back to Linda at the instructor's station.

"Yup" she replied.

"O.K. In the real airplane at this point I'd declare an emergency to get out of this hold and either get clearance to visual conditions or an approach to the nearest airport," I said.

I made a quick radio call and then we broke off that scenario, covered the AI and HSI. with Post-It notes and I continued to hold partial panel, using timed turns.

It was really a great experience and worth every penny. I'd failed the vacuum system before at home on the PC, so had seen how the AI started to very slowly roll over and die, giving incorrect attitude information as it wound down, but I'd also known it was happening so I was ready for it.

This time the failure came as a surprise -- just like it would in flight -- and during a period of relatively high workload. It was a great example of just how insidious that particular failure is. It was also something you simply can't duplicate in the airplane.

To sim or not to sim?

Technically, the question for most of us general aviation types is "to FTD or not to FTD". Or, in some instances, "to PCATD or not to PCATD."

(For a mercifully brief description of the differences between what the FAA considers an "FTD" vs. a "PCATD", check this out. Essentially, you can log 10 hours in a PCATD toward your instrument rating or 20 hours in an FTD toward the rating.)

The answer to either question, by the way, is a qualified "yes."

After the difficulty in getting my schedule, my instructor’s schedule and an available airplane to cooperate I started looking at alternatives.

One was to start flying with a safety pilot to log simulated instrument time. That removed one variable (my instructor’s schedule) from the equation, but added another (a safety pilot’s schedule) and did nothing to solve the airplane availability issue or simplify my own scheduling woes.

I should note, by the way, that my own work obligations are by far the most difficult of all the variables to work around. Both my club instructor and safety pilot have been reasonably available and downright eager to fly.

Anyhow, as I looked at it and did the math, I became really interested in logging some time in a simulator with an instructor. For less than I’d pay for an hour in one of our 182RGs or a little more than an hour in our 172s -- not counting an instructor -- I could log an hour in the sim with an instructor.

The numbers:

C182RG $108/hr
C172 $69/hr
Frasca 142 $45/hr
Instructor $40/hr

As I see it, some of the advantages of the FTD/PCATD are:

• Most realistic partial-panel scenarios possible
  
• Ability to quickly practice the same scenario/approach/hold/procedure over and over
  
• Ability to pause the sim to discuss what's going on, answer questions, go pee, etc..
  
• Ability to throw all sorts of weather scenarios, including wicked winds aloft, shear, below minimum ceilings, etc... that you'd never attempt in an airplane
  
• Cheaper than an airplane
  
• Harder to fly than an airplane, but not hard to fly
  
• No chance of a mid-air collision. Think it's a big sky? Think again.
  

To be perfectly honest, I can't think of any significant disadvantages. If you've got thoughts I'd love to hear them. The airlines and the military are obviously sold on the concept, so I figure it's probably a pretty good idea.

The thing about a sim, any sim, is that you can learn bad habits just as quickly as you can in the airplane. That's why having a good instructor working with you in the sim is so important. They're there to spot any bad tendencies and teach you how to correct them.

Having said that, long before I started my instrument training I'd spent more hours than I care to think about flying simulators on my PC. I'd crank the ceiling down near minimums and go fly in the soup. I don't know that I'd recommend it for everyone because it's so easy to develop bad habits, but I think in my case it really helped with my basic attitude flying and navigation.

What probably helped even more was an outstanding primary instructor who did a great job teaching me the basics while I was doing my private.

Now that I'm training, I fly approaches and holds on my PC several times a week, concentrating on building precision and really working on keeping my scan going. It takes discipline to sit down at the PC and fly NDB approaches in a 172 or 182RG instead of loading up a 777 or F15 and yanking and banking but the payoff is worth it. (Besides, there's plenty of time for yanking and banking later.)

My current favorite is X-Plane, although I’ve just purchased the ubiquitous Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 as well.

As far as I'm concerned, an hour spent with a good flight instructor is money extremely well spent and that's why doing part of my instrument training in the sim just made so much sense: I could spend less than I would for the airplane alone, get some quality instruction and practice things I'd never get to practice in the airplane.

It's a no brainer and if you're doing your instrument training you owe it to yourself to at least book a session in an FTD or PCATD with an instructor.

Time flies

I started working on my instrument rating July 20, 2005. Over the next three months I was able to fly 10.9 hours of simulated instrument time, or less than an hour a week.

What took so long? My work schedule was really busy, so it was difficult to get away (sound familiar? I thought so) and I was trying to do as much of my training in either of the two Cessna 182RGs in my flying club.

Why get an instrument rating in a 182RG when a 172 is cheaper and easier to fly? Because I really like flying the RGs, they’re both are reasonably well equipped (autopilots, Garmin 430s) and since they’re the airplanes I’m most likely to take on a trip they’re the airplanes I’m most likely fly IFR. So, I figured ‘train like you’ll fly, fly like you train.’

Plus, the challenge of learning to fly instruments in a fast, complex, high-performance, retractable gear airplane was just too good to pass up.

But no sooner than I started training did one of the RGs go down for maintenance. The one that was left was frequently booked for extended trips and when it was available neither mine nor my instructor’s schedules would cooperate.

To add to the difficulty, one of our two 172s had only a single nav radio, making it less than ideal for instrument work (and it too spent a fair amount of time on extended trips anyway) and the other, with two nav radios, was heavily booked.

So, adding the 10.9 hours I managed to log to the 5.7 hours I'd previously accumulated and I had a grand total of 16.6 hours of simulated instrument time.

The minimum required for the instrument rating (under part 91) is 40 hours.

To complicate matters, the 182RG that went down for maintenance in July is still down in November, one 172 is in for annual inspection and the other had been in for annual in late October and is back in the shop getting new avionics (hooray!) installed.

Obviously, if I kept going at my current pace this instrument rating thing is going to take a while. I need to find an alternative.

What's it all about...

Good question.

I've decided to blog my flight training experiences. In theory, that will allow others to learn from my mistakes and, hopefully, my successes. In practice, if 25 people read this I'll be shocked.

When it comes to blogging, I like to keep my goals modest.

Enough of that then. The story so far:

I earned my private pilot's license in 1993, flying an occassionally dodgy Cessna 172, N380LA, out of a grass airport in Canton, Ohio.

That airport, Martin Field, doesn't even exist anymore. When I was there it was an active dropzone, and I learned to fly surrounded by the most amazing bunch of headcases you've ever seen. Hardcore skydivers are a different breed and let's just leave it at that.

I'll always be proud to say I learned to fly off a grass runway. Grass airports are getting fewer and fewer, but there is something so beautiful and so right about them.

Light airplanes, I believe, were just meant to be flown off of grass.

The main runway at Martin ran east-west (9-27), was 2,600 feet long if memory serves and had a fairly pronounced hump about two-thirds of the way down if you were taking off to the west.

The hump was usually not a big deal because the winds were usually out of the west, so you landed short on 27 and were rolling out nice and slow by the time you got to it.

When the wind was out of the east, and you were a student pilot, that hump was the devil himself. Land past the hump and there wasn't a lot of runway left over. Land short and the hump had a way of throwing you back into the air just when you really wanted to be on the ground.

Landing on top of the hump was the goal (the backside was even better), but that meant you (well, I) risked landing -- and I use that term very loosely here -- into the face of the hump.

When that happened, well, it was really more of a series of landings, each worse than the previous one. You'd bang into the face of the hump with a horrible thump, get thrown back into the air in nearly a full stall, only to sail over the top of the hump and mush down the backside, out of airspeed, energy and ideas all at once. Usually you (well, I) would plop down once more, bounce a bit and then wobble away thanking Cessna for building strong airplanes that suffer fools kindly.

To top it all off, there was usually a dozen or so skydivers sitting around watching this take place and grinning from ear to ear. Most of them were pilots as well and had gotten 'humped' themselves from time to time.

The needling was constant, but underneath it all it was obvious they really cared and they were proud as could be when I eventually passed my checkride.

As luck would have it, the day I soloed (10-years after my first solo, more on that some other day) the wind was out of the southeast and runway 9 was active. It must have been my lucky day, because I managed to do my three takeoffs and landings without crashing into the face of the hump.

The hump did serve a purpose too. On really hot days the heavily loaded 182 jump planes would use the hump to sort of fling themselves into the air, then struggle along in and out of ground effect for a bit, picking up speed until they could start their climb out. It was impressive to watch.

I'll share some more stories from those lazy days, but it was a great place to learn and I'll always have a soft spot for small grass airports.

A memory

I'm six or maybe seven and a guy was giving rides in a Bell 47 down at the local park in Beacon, NY. Even at that age, I was fascinated by aviation.

My father and I went for a ride, my first ever. I couldn't tell you a thing about the flight -- what we saw, where we flew, how long it lasted, how much it cost -- because I don't remember.

But I can still feel the landing to this day. I remember distinctly being surprised at the jolt when the skids hit the grass and thinking the landings looked much softer when I was watching them from across the field. I remember that moment better than I remember what happened yesterday.

Pretty much sums up aviation eh? You take a wide-eyed kid for his first ever flight and all he remembers more than 30 years later is that the landing wasn't a greaser.

The same holds true today, no matter if you're giving rides in an ancient chopper or a 777: Folks might not think anything of the flight but botch the landing and they'll never forget. It's not fair, really, but that's the way it is.